Google Releases Cloud Container Builder On GCP

Google has strengthened its container offering by announcing the general availability of Cloud Container Builder on its Google Cloud Platform (GCP) service.

Described by Google as “a stand-alone tool for building container images regardless of deployment environment”, Container Builder features a command-line interface, automated build triggers and build steps for executing build commands.

The real sweetener is that it comes with 120 free build-minutes per day, enabling most users to move their builds to the cloud at no cost and with none of the overheads of managing their own servers. Any additional build-minutes are priced at $0.0034/minute.

Google cloud

“Whether you’re a large enterprise or a small startup just starting out with containers, you need a fast, reliable, and consistent way to package your software into containers as part of an automated workflow,” Google says.

“Container Builder enables you to build your Docker containers on GCP. This helps empower a tighter release process for teams, more reliable build environment across workspaces and frees you from having to manage your own scalable infrastructure for running builds.”

Other specs include a REST API for programmatically creating and managing builds and a gcloud command line interface for working with builds from the CLI.

There are also two new user interfaces in the Google Cloud Console, allowing users to track their build history and set up automated build triggers which work with Cloud Source Repository, Github, and Bitbucket.

Competition in the container market is rapidly heating up, as the technology has continued to grow in popularity. For example, VMware revealed its focus at VMWorld Europe 2016 in October, announcing a raft of container-related software updates and built-in support for Google’s Kubernetes.

More recently, Microsoft open sourced its Azure Container Service engine with Kubernetes as part of its drive to promote containerised software, Docker announced the acquisition of distributed storage vendor Infinit and Red Hat updated its hybrid cloud management platform.

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